I had fun using it to scrap these photos of Dylan playing last August:

The orange title letters are one of the alphabets included in the kit. I used the 'stroke' command in Photoshop to add a 50px white border around the letters. Then added a shadow to help create the look of stickers.

6/28/2011

A couple weeks ago I stepped out of the room long enough to put something in the kitchen (in our small house the living/dining/kitchen form an 'L' so I was just out of eye sight) and when I returned I found Dylan brushing his cousin's hair. It was so precious. Completely his own idea. He found his brush after I walked away. I was worried what the silence could mean but it was just the two of them having fun. As the pictures show, Lily was all grins and enjoying the attention.

6/24/2011

I really liked my SOOC shot this week and kept my edit very simple. Funny thing about it, I realized while writing this post that I pretty much did the exact same edit on another photo of the two of them for the Family theme.

6/23/2011

One of the downsides to digital scrapping? Sometimes I close Photoshop and forget when I return that I was working on a layout! Case in point, I found this page about Dylan's first time swimming in progress and finally finished it this week.

6/22/2011

6/21/2011

Last fall we were invited to a friend's wedding in the western part of the state. We took advantage of the opportunity and had my mom watch Dylan so we could take a weekend away just the two of us. That Saturday morning we headed to Chimney Rock Park for a little light hiking and sightseeing. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall morning. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

6/20/2011

Love this photo I captured of Trent & Dylan yesterday morning. For Trent's gift, I put together a photobook of the two of them with thank yous (ie, thanks for teaching me how to kick a ball). This was Dylan's first time seeing it too and the excitement shows on his face. :)

ISO 2800, ss 1/60, f5.0

I am so glad they both liked it! I made the book as much for Dylan as Trent. Being a stay-at-home mom, Dylan and I have lots of adventures together and most of his scrapbook pages reflect that. I wanted to be sure to document the times he spends with his dad too.

6/17/2011

I finally have a completed edit for last week's Shoot and Edit photo. I started on it last week and became frustrated so I shoved it aside. After a clean edit, I wasn't seeing a great deal of change so I decide to experiment for the fun of it. I played around with layers and masks - but was fighting with Photoshop through it all. Just not getting what I wanted. Midway through this week, I realized I had a setting wrong! Somehow I had the brush opacity set low which was causing my frustrations. I don't know how or why it was changed from 100%. Once I figured that out, I went to try again.

6/16/2011

I was quite excited when I recently learned I was accepted on the Creative Team for Sara Schmutz Designs. As such, Sara sent me her newest digital kit to play with. It's called No 1 Fan and is available starting today at Design House Digital. The baseball themed kit features 16 papers and 25 elements.

I dug around in my archives and found the perfect photos to use with the kit. They were taken two years ago when Trent, my sister & I went to a baseball game to celebrate Trent's 30th birthday. I had it announced on the big screen in the outfield. I wish I had a photo of his face when he saw it - caught him totally off guard. In other words, the perfect surprise. :)

6/15/2011

I've wanted to recover the pillows on our living room sofas for a few years now. I still love the fabric & pattern, but it's a bit dark for this time of year. Plus there are a few pulls in the material. I didn't want to replace them as they are perfectly good pillows. Just needed refreshing.

I looked periodically for store bought shams without finding anything I really loved enough for the price. I did once find fabric I loved to make my own with but even at half off was looking at over $40. I knew I could do better. And I did. Last week shopping with my mom, I found this tablecloth with the perfect colors to coordinate with my living room and I liked the clean simple stripes. Best of all $14 plus tax.

After washing it and accidentally shrinking it (oops!), it turned out to be the perfect amount of fabric. I literally just cut it into 4 pieces. Sewed one hem - the exposed edge is the original hem from the tablecloth. Folded each piece, sewed up the sides, flipped them inside out and I had 4 shams as easy as that. Here are the two (new & old) together on the main sofa:

6/14/2011

Dylan loves bubbles. And, being a toddler, wants to do it all by himself. He wants to dip the wand and blow without help. Sometimes it worked great - other times we had small "disasters" such as dumping out the entire bottle of bubble soap. Then Trent & I found him a wonderful small bubble holder. It's the perfect size for his little hands and doesn't spill. Finally, successful independence in bubble blowing. ;)

6/08/2011

6/07/2011

I've had fun creating cards and crafting birthday gifts for Dylan's friends. At 2, they are all beginning to have fun little personalities. The latest celebration was this past weekend and I knew there were two things this little guy likes - Elmo and numbers. Elmo is an obsession. ;) And in the last few months I've been so impressed with his number recognition. First I caught him pointing them out so his mom would say the names out loud. Now he tells us what numbers he sees. Those things are what inspired his card and gift.

I combined both for the card using an image I found of Elmo online and resized. Then I made the numbered paper using a digital kit. I resized and recolored the numbers element to work with my design.

For the gift, I made him two sets of felt flash cards following this tutorial on Sew Much Ado blog. Each set is on its own binder ring. He can play with one or both, flip them upside down to play a matching game, etc. As soon as he pulled the cards from the gift bag, he began flipping through them and saying each number aloud. I'm going to take that as "I like it!" :)

6/06/2011

Having fun in the backyard playing with bubbles. Found these wands stashed away that we bought years ago from Old Navy. They are perfect for using with a toddler. Just dip and then swing them through the air for lots of bubbles.

6/03/2011

Going into my edit, I knew I wanted to crop the photo and lighten it up a bit. I felt like it was a little dull.

I started with a clean edit and then added a vignette following the video tutorial Ashley embedded in her post. Next I ran the Perfect Portrait 3 action from the CoffeeShop blog. I don't use actions a lot and, I confess, the long instructions plus numerous layers this one added intimidated me a bit. Nonetheless, I slowly worked my way through it curious to see the result.

For whatever reason, I did not end up with every layer mentioned in the post. Maybe a compatibility issue with my older version of Photoshop? I skipped directions for the couple of layers I couldn't find, deleted an extra background copy layer and then followed the directions for tweaking most of the remaining layers. I did turn off the "urban grit" layer - I felt like there was enough "grit" in the background of sand. ;)

As time consuming as the edit was, it was worth it - Dylan's face is brighter, his eyes shine and the vignette draws the viewer straight in. (Mouse over to compare.)

6/02/2011

We're surrounded in birthday fun around here lately with two more celebrations coming up this weekend - Trent's birthday and one of Dylan's playgroup friends. Two weeks ago (and I can't believe I forgot to share this until now!), another playgroup buddy turned 2. Here's the card I made for him:

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Thanks for visiting my blog! The thoughts & ideas expressed herein aremy own unless stated otherwise. Please do not duplicate or distribute any images or written content without my prior consent. ~ Sarah